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Wednesday, June 3, 2015

7 Classic Geek-Friendly Franchises That Deserve A Sequel

It seems pretty safe to say that Mad Max: Fury Road
is a bona fide success at this point. The new installment of director
George Miller's post-apocalyptic wasteland saga is earning
near-universal praise from critics while raking in box-office revenue,
and yet the most impressive aspect of Fury Road's success just might be the fact that it's the follow-up to a film released more than 30 years ago.

This year's movie slate also features sequels for the Star Wars and Jurassic Park franchises that pick up where Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi left off 32 years ago and Jurassic Park III
concluded a mere 14 years ago, respectively. If nothing else, it's
proof that it doesn't take a reboot to make everything old feel new
again.

Given all of this interest in bringing older franchises back into the
spotlight again, one can't help wondering about some of the other, geeky
series that might benefit from a modern sequel. Here are seven older
geeky movie franchises that seem ready for a new chapter:

Gremlins

What's not to like about the idea of bringing cute, cuddly Gizmo back
for another adventure with his creepy, crazy, reptilian offspring? A
return to the darker, more horror-influenced tone of the original, 1984
film (and away from the sillier 1990 sequel) might serve the series
well, but one thing is certain: practical effects are the way to go with
any Gremlins movie. Heck, maybe a new movie could offer a bit more info
about the origins of the mogwai – just as long as it eschews
digitally-created creatures in telling the story.

Darkman

Sam Raimi's grim 1990 superhero movie Darkman cast Liam Neeson
as a scientist who's left for dead by mobsters who wreck his lab, only
to develop superhuman strength and a fantastic capacity for pain. It
spawned a pair of forgettable direct-to-video sequels, but the original
film was a precursor to the “dark” comic-book movies that became all too
common in the years to follow.

Although the title character borrowed liberally from the pulp hero The
Shadow, there were some unique – and extremely compelling – elements of
the character that merited more attention, but failed to receive it in
the subsequent installments. Give this one to an up-and-coming director
and see what he can do with its unstable, ultraviolent hero.

Revenge of the Nerds

Yesterday's nerds are today's billionaire CEOs and tech celebrities, so
it would be interesting to see Lewis Skolnick and the rest of his
Lambda Lambda Lambda brothers called upon to champion a different group
of outsiders that find themselves victimized by bullies. Want to give
the movie a fun twist? Make the villains a group of elitist nerds and
get the old Tri-Lamb crew back together to help out a bunch of phys-ed
students (or possibly some downtrodden college athletes) being
victimized by the snobby math and science majors.

The NeverEnding Story

The two sequels to this 1984 film failed to capture the magic of the
original, but enough time has passed – and enough has changed in the
world – to make the idea of revisiting the land of Fantasia an appealing
prospect. What happens to that magical world when more and more people –
including the youngest generations – opt to go digital with their
reading material? And more importantly, what's Falkor been up to all
this time?

Mortal Kombat

Sure, there's been a great webseries and various other fan-made
iterations of the game-turned-movie franchise released over the last
decade or so, but a potential big-screen reboot has been mired in
development hell since the credits rolled on 1997's Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.
Rather than go the reboot route, however, a sequel could re-establish
the series' continuity and takes a lesson from some of the
aforementioned webseries' success with aping classic kung-fu sagas.

Back to the Future

Purists will almost certainly scoff at this one, but let's be honest:
Time-travel plot devices make anything possible, even unlikely sequels.
Back in 1990, Back to the Future III concluded with Doc Brown
flying off to an unknown time aboard a reconfigured
locomotive-turned-aircraft, so there's reason to believe we haven't seen
the last of ol' Doc. Would it surprise anyone to see him pop up someday
with an important mission for Marty McFly's son or daughter – possibly
involving some interaction with their parents' timelines? Today's
digital-editing software certainly makes it possible to bring such an
encounter to the screen, so all that's missing is the right story.

Escape From...

John Carpenter's 1996 sequel to Escape from New York was a
critical and commercial flop, but that doesn't mean the world is any
less interested in Snake Plissken, Kurt Russell's iconic character from
the two films. The patch-eyed special forces operative turned criminal
has been the focus of countless comics, fan films, and homages in
mainstream media over the years, so there's reason to believe that all
he needs is the right treatment to get back in action. And let's not forget that Russell showed some impressive action chops in the recent Furious 7. With the conclusion of Escape From L.A. plunging
the world back into a technology-free existence, it would be
interesting to see Plissken get back to his roots as society attempts to
rebuild itself.